September 21st 2006, 9:20AM [PST] - Today, September 20, 2006, FTW subscribers received a fraudulent email disguised as an FTW email alert. Long story short, we are experiencing a malicious prank. The email is 200% bogus. How do I know? Because I speak with Mike Ruppert every day, and I can verify that he is not "able to live fairly well here" as this ruse states in the first sentence. Not only do I know that Mike did not write this email because its style and tone are not his, but I am profoundly familiar with the nature of his life in Caracas which is spare, austere, and extremely limited on a number of levels, including financial.

Mike recently had his laptop repaired, not because the CIA or FBI downloaded anything into it but because it had mechanical problems, and he did not have his recovery disk with him. HE DOES NOT NEED A NEW LAPTOP; the one he just got back from the computer repair shop works just fine!

We want to assure our subscribers that none of their personal information has been in any way compromised by this prank. All FTW subscriber and credit card information is stored on a separate secure system under very expensive security. That system is completely separate and distinct from the protocols we had been using to upload stories and which is now being upgraded at significant expense for even greater security.

FTW has survived this kind of harassment many times, and we will do so once more. We regret this kind of nonsense going into the inboxes of our subscribers, and we thank you for your loyal support.